


our skin is history

by trash_mammall



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Bonding, Communication, Fluff, Friendship, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Happy, Happy Ending, Healing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Scars, Sort Of, guys this is just rly nice, nothing bad rly happens at all, theyre not there but theyre talked abt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 02:32:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_mammall/pseuds/trash_mammall
Summary: it's a warm afternoon, and as the sun sets Nikki and Neil share stories of their past mishaps. Max doesn't want to join in, but he opens up anyway.





	our skin is history

“Where’d you get that?”

Neil was pointing at a long scar down Nikki’s elbow, and she paused from habitually pulling at grass to look down at it. Max didn’t lift his head from where it rested on his crossed arms, sunglasses perched on his nose as he watched the clouds roll by.

Neil had been sitting, shoes and socks discarded to the side with the other two pairs, watching as Nikki repetitively plucked a piece of grass and attempted to blow through it to create a whistle. She had just deemed her fifth strand no good and tossed it aside when he had noticed the pale tissue.

Nikki scrunched her nose a moment, thinking, before replying, “I think I was climbing up some boulders when my dad and I were camping, and I slipped.” She then grinned, smile growing teasing as she recalled the memory and pulled out another blade of grass, “There was a  _ ton _ of blood, I think my dad almost started crying.”

Neil was left minorly unsettled as Nikki giggled and, giving up on blowing through the grass, resorted to simply tearing them from their roots. There was a pause before Nikki scuffed Neil’s shoulder and gestured to his foot.

“What about you?”

Neil snorted, grinning and rubbing a finger over the burned skin. “I was doing some dumb experiment in my basement a few years ago and dropped an Erlenmeyer Flask with some sulfuric acid in it.” He rolled up the leg of his pants, moving so Nikki could get a better look as the scarred marks travelled up his shin, “See?”

Nikki’s eyes widened, awe mixing with intrigue in the quirk of her smile. She poked at the tissue that raised and pumped along his leg, snorting, “That’s so  _ cool! _ ”

With a hint of pride at his ability to impress, Neil smirked, swatting Nikki’s fingers away before pulling his pant leg back down. “It  _ is _ pretty damn cool, I have to admit.”

The two continued to trade stories marked along their bodies in each swell of tissue. Nikki’s tended to stem from impulse, climbing trees or following animals into their homes. Neil’s, too, had their consistencies, though there were far fewer discolourations of his skin to pull normal childhood experiences from. The majority of them came from experiments gone wrong, leaving only a couple to roughhousing in his earlier years. Neither of these patterns surprised Max as he lay next to them, perfectly content to imagine a younger Nikki and Neil running and mixing solutions until something went wrong. The background noise was pleasant, but then it fell silent, as though it hit a wall Max hadn’t been expecting.

It was awkward, abrupt.

A moment of silence passed before Max raised his glasses in confusion, lifting a brow at the sudden end of the conversation. He then noticed both faces looking at him in expectation and curiosity.

He glared back. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Nikki was leaning forward to get a good look at Max, perching herself on Neil’s leg. “We talked about our battle wounds, what about you? You’ve gotta have at  _ least _ one!”

Neil nodded, tacking on, “Yeah, Max! It’s not like we’d judge you.”

Max scoffed, letting his sunglasses fall back into place as he readjusted, “I’m not talking about my scars, guys. Unlike you, I don’t boast about making dumbass mistakes.”

Nikki groaned in disappointment, falling onto her back, while Neil frowned and stared Max down.

“That’s no fair, we’re not boasting we’re just  _ sharing. _ It’s what friends do, Max.”

Max shrugged. “Eh, still not doing it.”

Crossing his arms, Neil huffed, letting his head fall to the grass as well. 

“Why not?”

“Neil-”

“No, I’m just curious. Why don’t you wanna share?”

“Drop it Neil, I just don’t want to.”

“That’s not a reason! You  _ never _ talk about yourself, and I dunno about Nikki but I wanna know about my friend for once!”

Max rubbed his eyes under his glasses, agitation beginning to push against his forehead. “Look, I just don’t wanna talk about my fucking scars, okay, Neil? I don’t need permission from you to  _ not _ explain why I’m fucked up. You’re being a piece of shit, so drop it.”

The trio was hushed, this time foreign tension dripping from the air. It seeped into Max’s clothes, sending a shiver down his spine despite the summer heat, and he let out a long breath.

A younger him might have simply stayed angry, shoved Neil away in a frantic attempt at self preservation. Hell,  _ two months _ younger and he would have done just that.

But he wasn’t the same, and so he fixed his skewed glasses and ran his fingers through his hair, swallowing what he’d learned from example along with a mouthful of hubris.

“I’m sorry, Neil. For calling you a piece of shit and getting so angry.”

He heard, more than saw, Neil turning his head to look at Max, then it turning back to watch the sky. The clouds continued to sweep across an endless blue, and Nikki listened on.

“It’s my fault, I shouldn’t’ve pushed you. I’m sorry man, you don’t have to talk about them or explain yourself. It’s chill.”

Max nodded to himself, lips twitching into a contented smile as the three of them watched the world play out together. The trees that towered above them, only a few species familiar from David’s lessons, swayed with the breeze. Somewhere, they heard squirrels and the snapping of twigs under the feet of a sprinting camper. The gentle melody David was humming travelled over from the dock, only a short distance away, as he picked trash out of the water that had floated over from various campgrounds on the other side of the lake.

The buzz of camp was comfortable, and when Nikki broke it, she spoke far calmer than most tended to hear.

“Max?”

He hummed in response.

“Do you think you could tell us something about yourself? Something we don’t know? It’s just that you never really talk about it, and I just. I dunno. I guess I’m just interested.”

There was a beat of a questioning and cautious silence, before Nikki rushed, “Obviously no pressure, I’m just wondering.”

Max let out a sigh through his nose, searching through the memories filed away in his mind for one that felt appropriate. Eventually, after a pause of contemplation, Max cleared his throat.

“You know Mr. Honeynuts?” His voice felt unsure, like it hadn’t practiced sharing information in a long time.

No one commented on it.

No one was surprised.

Nikki giggled, Neil replying, “The bear taken by the Wood Scouts?”

Max, deciding to ignore Nikki’s snort of amusement, continued, “Yeah. He, uh he’s really old? Like, okay, we’re fucking children so obviously not  _ that _ old but, y’know, he’s seen some shit.”

“Warrior type.”

“Exactly, Nikki. I’ve had him since I can remember, ‘nd at this point he kinda just goes everywhere with me. School, the park, different rooms in my house, whatever. He’s beat up pretty bad, but I learned how to do some okay surgery on him to keep him up ‘n’ running. Kinda like, I dunno, a comfort object?”

Max trailed off, shrugging a shoulder haphazardly. He wasn’t sure what the two were looking for, but a line of useless information didn’t feel right. Instead of rambling, he gave them space to ask a question – easier than guessing what they wanted him to say.

After a moment, Neil asked, “Who gave him to you?”

Max’s lips quirked up, something soft and unseen by the two watching a bird flitter between branches.

“My dādī –” Nikki hummed in confusion– “Grandma. She taught me how to patch him up, too, ‘n’ that’s kind of the only real reason I know how to knit. She was big on the whole ‘knowing how to fix your own shit’ thing, so she started teaching me hella early. I haven’t seen her in years, though, which fucking blows, but I guess that’s what happens when you live in a different country.”

Neil and Nikki could sense the warmth in Max’s voice, something they hadn’t heard from him before. It was far quieter, as if he was afraid to tarnish the memory of his dādī by talking about her, but it continued to feel as though something was being closed off. As if he was holding a memory close to his chest, dodging around talking about it while still desperately trying to connect with them;  _ share _ with them.

Like friends do.

Neil decided it was okay if Max didn’t plow headfirst in whatever he was caging off. He took a breath, and, for once, he told himself not to poke further.

And he smiled.

“She sounds really nice, I hope you get to see her again soon,” Neil remarked, voice lowered in some unnecessary attempt to keep the gentle air from cracking. “I have a grandma in Israel, and she’s seriously so cool. She makes the best food you’ve ever tasted, and I think her teaching me how to cook is honestly what got me into chemistry. I haven’t seen her since, like, my second hanukkah ever. I get it, dude.”

Max felt a warmth in his chest replace the anxious tension that had formed earlier as Nikki began to speak.

“I haven’t seen my grandpa in a while, either, but I dunno where he lives. He got me a football for Christmas once, when I was really little, and we spent all day throwing it even though it was snowing. He was the first person to get me something I could actually  _ play _ with. We used to wrestle in the backyard, since my mom was never really paying attention to where I was, and it was so  _ freeing _ . I miss him.”

The three inhaled, letting the scent of the forest wash over them, and Max reflexively wiped at the damp trail edging down his temple.

And if David had seen the three grinning and watching the birds dance above, stories whispered between them in hushed solidarity, he chose, just this once, to let it be.

As the sun began to set, a comforting void swept over them, one full of an unexpected bond and a collective pull – a tug in their chests from the memories they didn’t dare smudge, hoping for the day they may relive them with laughter and a comforting  _ “remember when we…?” _

When David called that it was time for dinner, when Max threw Nikki’s shoes at her harder than he needed to, and Neil pelted Max with his socks, the warmth lingered. Laughter bubbled in their stomachs as they tripped over themselves, attempts to put on their footwear being foiled by playful shoves, and it was safe.

Not for the first time, they felt at home.

And maybe, Max thought, it would be worth it to share the stories written in the marks on his body, raised tissue like braille lettering for him to translate late at night, sheltered by the comfort of shadows and moonlight.

When the other campers rested, and the only thing for him to do was to speak into the drowsy air.

The air that, this time, would listen.

**Author's Note:**

> i felt bad abt posting so many angsty fics so i thought a good ol fashioned healing fic was needed. lots of friendship, lots of bonding, and a warm evening to relax with.
> 
> hope you enjoyed, and thank you fr reading!
> 
> until next time!
> 
> tumblr: trash-mammall


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